Primatology is the scientific study of primates. This can either be in their natural habitats, laboratories, or even zoos. Primatologists study primates to understand how humans work. According to them primates are our closest ancestors, so it makes sense to study them to be able to understand where we came from. For this assignment we basically got to be primatologists for a day. For my zoo observations I went to the San Francisco Zoo. I've only been there once before, so it was cool to be able to take my time with two specific animals and notice how they live in these gated spaces, but are still somewhat comfortable. .
It was October 24th when I went, from around 2-5 and I watched the animals from 2-4. It was a little bit of a time crunch because I also wanted to see other animals at the zoo, but it closed right at 5 so after observing I basically ran around the whole zoo to be able to see everything in time. The first thing I did though was observe two species of primates. The first was the Western Lowland Gorilla exhibit. The species name is G.Gorilla, and the genus is Gorilla. In this exhibit there is one male gorilla, and 4 female gorillas including a baby. Looking at the male and females you can tell the sex because the male is huge compared to the females and especially the 9 month old baby. The male also had silver on his back, which is why he is called silverback. This is a helpful way to distinguish male from female, because you could clearly see the silver on his back making him male. The male was so big I couldn't even compare it to a human. Maybe you could compare him to a body builder, because I also noticed how muscular he is. The females were much smaller though. I would compare them to a little old lady crouched down using a cane or something. Not that the females don't have muscle, they just don't have it like the male. .
For this exhibit, I thought it was well put together.
